I like to write about movies of all sorts: old and new, good and bad, mainstream and obscure, local and foreign.
Warning: some articles in this blog may be offensive to fans of James Bond, Jean-Luc Godard, and Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris.

Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Announcing Free Action Movie Week: YOU Pick the Movies

So back in July shortly after I saw Under the Skin at the Lightbox, I found out to my surprise that my friend Ryan McNeil of The Matinee had been there roughly the same time as me seeing The Immigrant. He was surprised to find out I was based in Toronto as well and invited me to a monthly gathering of film bloggers. Typically we meet at a pub once a month (though we're not doing it in December) where we hang out, have drinks, discuss movies, blogging projects, blindspots, and other things. I've met quite a few people at these gatherings, but last night something a bit more unusual happened.

One of the bloggers there (I'm sorry, I forgot which one; with so many people it's easy to lose track) brought a bag full of DVD's and told us to "pilfer" it. To say that we did was an understatement and I walked out with a large pile of FREE MOVIES. As it also happens I'm nearing the end of the semester and in two weeks I'll be finished my exams. After all that the strain of my courses gets to my head, and if last year was anything to go on it's time for lots of action films and comedies. Naturally taking this into account I decided to stock up on action movies (there were several in the bag), there were one or two I'd seen, others I'd heard of, and some I'd never heard of but decided to take anyway since they were free.

There's just one problem. I have a tendency to sometimes have trouble deciding on what movies I want to watch, especially under these circumstances. My tendency to run into this problem was one of the reasons I got involved with the Blindspot Challenge in the first place, but I've got a solution. I'm going to take the choice right out of it. I'm not going to pick the movies, you will.

I now have an account on Letterbox (I had to get one in order to warn somebody about the dangers of putting Alphaville on their Blind Spot List), and since I happen to have it I have compiled a list of the action films I picked up for free at that pub night. What I'd like you to do is list your top five recommendations in the comments below. On Wednesday, December 10; after my final exam is done I'll compile the top five most popular choices and over the course of December 15-19 I will watch and review one each day.

In other news, I've decided to tone down my Voyage to the Stars Blogathon; the status report is now optional, you may stop after the plan of action if you do not feel comfortable writing it. Also keep an eye out for two other blogathons I have lined up for December, both follow-ups to my hugely successful Women in Film Blogathon that preserve a similar structure but take it in new directions. One is a spin-off which will shift focus to a different but equally important social issue, the other is a sequel that will continue to look at women in film but in a new perspective.

I've seen all of those listed except 12 Rounds so I won't recommend that one. Given your outlook on things I'd say my top 3 choice are no-brainers while the last two I list are underrated, in my opinion.

Yeah, I had meant for it to be a challenge but I may have succeeded a bit TOO well in it. After trying to write my own entry I started to see just how hard it was to put together and I got to thinking that might have been part of why I haven't gotten a lot of interest from other users. Since I've already come this far I didn't want to pull the plug, so the best thing I could do was make that part optional so that players could try to write it if they wanted but weren't required to do so. It's not like it won't be challenging without the Status Report either, what with the whole competitive structure.

My top 3 are Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Mystery Men and Unstoppable. To let your mind go and not delve too much into anything then Eraser and Deep Impact-They're ok in a typical way. I have not seen the others so can't comment on them

You can't go wrong with Eraser, Deja Vu (I'll second Wendell and say this one is very underrated!), and Unstoppable. Deep Impact was alright, but I haven't seen enough of it to recommend it. Stay far away from Faster, that movie was horrible. I haven't watched Mr & Mrs Smith in a few years so I don't remember a whole lot about that one.